Shereen El Feki

Shereen El Feki works and writes on sexuality and social change in the Arab world.

Why you should listen

Dividing her time between London and Cairo, TED Fellow Shereen El Feki works on issues related to health and social welfare in the Arab region -- including intimate attitudes toward sexual (and political) freedoms, as explored in her new book,Sex and the Citadel.

Half-Egyptian and half-Welsh, El Feki was brought up in Canada. She started her professional life in medical science, with a PhD in molecular immunology from the University of Cambridge, and later worked as healthcare correspondent at The Economist. She also is a former vice chair of the United Nations' Global Commission on HIV and Law. While she has worked in regional media as a presenter with the Al Jazeera Network, and continues to write on social issues in the Arab world, her passion lies in projects that aim to better understand, and surmount, the social challenges facing Arabs, particularly young people.

More news and ideas from Shereen El Feki

“The political and the sexual are intimate bedfellows,” says Shereen El Feki in yesterday’s talk. “That is true for all of us, no matter where we live and love.” For five years, El Feki talked to people across Middle East about their bedroom behavior, and what she found over and over was a seemingly deep-rooted […]

TEDGlobal Fellow, and author of Sex and the Citadel, Shereen El Feki comes on stage to tell us about Faiza, a woman she met on a recent trip to Casablanca. Unmarried, and a new mother, Faiza proudly told El Feki her story as she showed off her young son. “It was a remarkable tale, but Faiza saved […]